Penis Size MATTERS


Tyrnavos Phallus Festival


	Many Greeks mark the beginning of Lent on "Clean Monday" by observing a day of modesty, flying kites and beginning a 40-day fast in the run-up to Easter with such foods as octopus, olives and unleavened bread. But in Tyrnavos, this particular Monday is downright dirty.

	In ancient times the Dionysian revels were very lewd. Dominant elements in these customs are the phallus symbols and satire, which centres on local events. Every year in ancient Athens, a huge phallus was taken around the city at the Greater Dionysia, and similar processions were held in many other cities. This phallic aspect of the revels has been preserved most enthusiastically in Tyrnavo.



	The Dirty Monday festival in Tyrnavos is one of the most famous carnivals in Greece. Faithful to the old traditions, the people of Tyrnavos still honour the god Dionyssus with various festivities. Perhaps the most obviously pagan of these is found under the misleading name 'cooking the bourani', a vegetable soup, which is served on Ash Monday every year and brings a lot of Greek and foreign tourists in the area. During the cooking of the soup, the "bourani people" do a lot of teasing with phallic symbols, while phallic objects are paraded through the town. Unabashedly phallic, this carnival celebration in Tyrnavos is wild fun. There are people against it, but the Festival has come through, and every year, on Ash Monday, the town of Tyrnavos is jam-packed with fun-loving participants and spectators. People of all ages, women and men, Greeks and foreigners, participate and enjoy themselves. The Festival began centuries, if not millennia, ago. While it is a bit absurd, history is full of festivals associated with fertility symbols. Some archaeologists think that fertility rites are one of the oldest forms of religious rites in Greece.



	If you want to eat phallus-shaped bread, drink through phallus-shaped straws from phallus-shaped cups, kiss ceramic phalluses, sit on a phallus-shaped throne and sing dirty Greek songs about the phallus, then you should visit the little Greek town of Tyrnavos each year on “Clean Monday.”



	The one-day pagan fertility festival in this town of 15,000 people near the central Greek city of Larissa marks the beginning of Lent, the fasting period before Easter, and is one of the most famous carnivals in Greece.



	The festival is in honor of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, madness and ecstasy. While the men, women and children of Tyrnavos celebrate the penis, the rest of Greece marks the beginning of the pre-Easter fast more modestly by flying kites and eating octopus, olives and unleavened bread.